Punk's Not Dead (2011)

Punk's Not Dead (2011)
Directors: Vladimir Blazevski
Country: Republic of Macedonia

Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes








Macedonia's official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 84th Academy Awards 2012.

Punk's not dead is a remarkable black-comedy by Vladimir Blazevski. It is about a reunion of old punk band. Mirsa is a punk who is trying to put up with the struggles of everyday life in Skopje. One day he was offered to play for some multicultural-happening in Debar. Actually, all he ever wants is to play again with his punk band, so he accepts the offer. The next step is to find all former members of the band and make them play again... His ex-girlfriend is coming back to him and she is helping him to find the former members of the band. Punk's not dead gives good message - we should keep on trying to make our dreams come true.
 

White White World (2010)

White White World (2010)

Directors: Oleg Novkovic
Country: Serbia
Runtime: 1 hour 55 minutes





 In the Serbian drama “White White World: The Miner’s Opera” (“Beli Beli Svet”), the characters sing, but never dance. Formulated as a modern day Greek tragedy set in the decrepit southeastern mining town Bor, the movie follows a close group of alienated locals through misguided love affairs and other brash misdeeds. But the songs feature no choreography or other stylish methods of breaking the harsh, downtrodden tableaux. It’s a surprisingly effective strategy. With his sophomore effort, director Oleg Novkovic uses musical expression to frame inner monologues that would never work in spoken form. As a result, a story exclusively populated by damaged people engaged in morally ambiguous, often depraved behavior manages to evoke sympathy for all of them.
At its center is King, a retired boxer now running the neighborhood bar. Years earlier, he had an affair with erstwhile seductress Ruzica, an act that led her to kill her husband and wind up behind bars. The movie begins shortly before Ruzica’s release from jail, when the still-swinging King engages in a similarly ill-fated liaison with Ruzica’s rebellious 18-year-old daughter, Rosa. After a few drinks, two engage in fast, passionless sex, and King rushes out the door without a word…

The Fourth Portrait (2010)

The Fourth Portrait (2010)

Directed by: Mong-Hong Chung
Country: Taiwan
Runtime: 105 min








Ten year-old Xiang faces a lonely future after his father dies. Just when he thinks he's going to spend his life in the orphanage, his estranged mother shows up. And his life changes forever... A loveless mother, a hateful stepfather, a chilly home. Where's Xiang heading to* He finds comfort in drawing and his work reveals his longing for care and affection. Life is full of hope again when he meets the old school janitor who doesn't show his kindness easily and a portly man who has crazy ideas and is haunted with nightmares of his brother. A scary truth is about to be unmasked. Will Xiang be able to depict his own image in the fourth portrait?

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

Director: Werner Herzog
Country: Canada | USA | France
Runtime: 90 min


Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of Southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of humankind in their astonishing natural setting.


In 1994, a group of scientists discovered a cave in Southern France perfectly preserved for over 20,000 years and containing the earliest known human paintings. Knowing the cultural significance that the Chauvet Cave holds, the French government immediately cut-off all access to it, save a few archaeologists and paleontologists. But documentary filmmaker, Werner Herzog, has been given limited access, and now we get to go inside examining beautiful artwork created by our ancient ancestors around 32,000 years ago. He asks questions to various historians and scientists about what these humans would have been like and trying to build a bridge from the past to the present.

Midnight in Paris(2011)

                                                                       Midnight in Paris
                                                                Directed by: Woody Allen
                                                                    Country: Spain, USA
                                                                          Runtime: 94 min 

Gil and Inez travel to Paris as a tag-along vacation on her parents' business trip. Gil is a successful Hollywood writer but is struggling on his first novel. He falls in love with the city and thinks they should move there after they get married, but Inez does not share his romantic notions of the city or the idea that the 1920s was the golden age. When Inez goes off dancing with her friends, Gil takes a walk at midnight and discovers what could be the ultimate source of inspiration for writing. Gil's daily walks at midnight in Paris could take him closer to the heart of the city but further from the woman he's about to marry.

Woody Allen's love affair with France, which goes back decades, finds its finality with "Midnight in Paris," the latest of Allen's Parisian brochures, which recently opened at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday. The good news is that Allen seems to be paying attention in a way he hasn't always done in recent films, and has found a way to channel his often-caustic misanthropy, half-comic fear of death and anti-American bitterness into agreeable comic whimsy. The nominal point of "Midnight in Paris" is that we've all got to make the best of life in our own time while longing for a past that probably never existed. If anything, Allen seems to be rebuking himself, ever so mildly, for his compulsive romanticism, his obsession with the past and his disconnection from contemporary American life. Allen has baked us a sweet, airy Parisian dessert with just a sense of sentimental substance in the finish. One of his better films in his latter years.
IMDB Review

Dreileben:Trilogy

In the summer of 2006, film directors Dominik Graf, Christian Petzold and Christoph Hochhäusler began corresponding with each other on the subjects of film aesthetics, the Berlin School, Germany and the film genre (their correspondence was published in German film magazine Revolver). Two years later they decided to continue this theoretical discussion with a joint film project: three individual stories revolving around the same “fait divers”: the escape of a convicted criminal from police custody. Graf’s DON’T FOLLOW ME AROUND tells the story of a police psychologist who meets old acquaintances while investigating a case. In Petzold’s BEATS BEING DEAD a young man doing alternative national service experiences a love story without a future. And in Christoph Hochhäusler’s ONE MINUTES OF DARKNESS an indefatigable policeman hunting the escaped prisoner begins to doubt false certainties. Three films, three styles, three exciting approaches, variations, analyses.
Dreileben 1:Beats Being Dead
Directors: Christian Petzold
Country: Germany
Runtime: 1 hour 26 minutes

''Beats Being Dead'' is the first part of the DREILEBEN trilogy.

A big hospital on the outskirts of a small city in the middle of the Thuringian Forest. Here Johannes carries out his alternative national service. The head physician, a family friend, has recruited him. Johannes gets to know Ana. During the night of their first embrace, a sex offender escapes from the hospital. His flight and the police’s hectic search accompany the story of Johannes and Ana – a love story transcending boundaries, without a future.


Dreileben 2: Don't Follow Me Around
Directors: Dominik Graf
Country: Germany
Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes

In the trilogy’s second chapter, Jo, a big-city police psychologist, arrives in Dreileben to aid in the ongoing investigation, whereupon she finds herself greeted cooly by the local authorities but welcomed with open arms by Vera, a college friend who lives nearby with her husband, a pretentious author. As the girlfriends reminisce about bygone days and discover they were both once in love with the same man, director Dominik Graf deftly juxtaposes their personal drama against the search for a killer, a police corruption scandal, and a possible case of interspecies transmutation—all underlining the trilogy’s recurring themes of false appearances and deeply hidden truths.

Dreileben 3: One Minute of Darkness
Directors: Christoph Hochhäusler
Country: Germany
Runtime: 1 hour 29 minutes

 The Dreileben trilogy comes to a nail-biting close with director Christoph Hochhäusler’s expert thriller, which also brings escaped felon Molosch—a peripheral character in the first two parts—into sharp focus. Hot on the killer’s trail, grizzled police inspector Marcus tries to put himself inside the mind of the criminal, even as he begins to wonder if the condemned man really is guilty as charged. Meanwhile, as Molosch flees deeper into Dreileben’s possibly enchanted forest, he has an unexpectedly tender encounter with a young runaway girl—scenes that echo the Frankenstein story and transform One Minute of Darkness into a dark, memorably strange fairy tale.

The Other Bank(2009)

The Other Bank

Directors: George Ovashvili
Country: Georgia | Kazakhstan
Runtime: 1 hour 29 minutes



A young refugee and his mother flee ethnic cleansing in the Georgian region of Abkhazia, leaving his father behind. After arriving in the Georgina capital of Tbilisi, the young boy encounters difficulties with his mother, and begins a lonely journey back to Abkahzia to find his father.

Reviews

A 12-year-old Georgian boy embarks on a dangerous mission to find his father behind enemy lines in the breakaway Republic of Abkhazia in Georgian helmer George Ovashvili's moving feature debut, "The Other Bank." Showcasing impressive perfs from nonpro thesps, especially young Tedo Bekhauri as the lead, "Bank" wisely invests in unobtrusive naturalism and powerful but unsentimental storytelling that should ensure further fest play. That said, the pic doesn't quite pack an emotive enough punch to woo (or wow) auds much beyond Georgian and Russian arthouses.
Variety
*
"Gripping and visually impaling in the land of lost". Stranded in a war-torn-worn-down Tsibili in the aftermath of the conflicts between Abkhazia and Georgia in the early 90′s, 12-year-old Tedo and a slightly reluctant mother find themselves living as refugees, trying to make ends meet. As Tedo’s glue sniffing friends are arrested for petty crimes and the mother favor scummy lovers over her son, the young boy embarks on a journey back to Abkhazia to find the father left behind.
The Other Bank much reminisces of Greek director Angelopoulos film Landscape in the Mist where the children also leaves what they call home on a quest to find a missing father. They both encounter various kinds of people who treat them in various ways, some times quite unexpected. What makes The Other Bank interesting in particular is that it is set in such a remote location, showcasing a reality characterized by poverty, uncertainty and everything else that war brings with. The boy moves through desolate landscapes and cross borders where passing may rob you of your life.
Politics strongly pervades pic, but philosophical aspects which goes hand in hand with a few visually impaling scenes and a grand acting by the [amateur] lead performer turns this into a certain winner. A must see.
Mubi.com
*
Stranded in a war-torn-worn-down Tsibili in the aftermath of the conflicts between Abkhazia and Georgia in the early 90′s, 12-year-old Tedo and a slightly reluctant mother find themselves living as refugees, trying to make ends meet. As Tedo's glue sniffing friends are arrested for petty crimes and the mother prefer scummy lovers over him, the young boy embarks on a journey back to Abkhazia to find the father left behind.
The Other Bank much reminisces of Greek director Angelopoulos film Landscape in the Mist, where the children also leave what they call home on a quest to find a missing father. They both encounter various kinds of people who treat them in various ways, some times quite unexpected. What makes The Other Bank interesting in particular is that it is set in such a remote location, showcasing a reality (and the scenes it takes place in) characterized by poverty, uncertainty and everything else that war brings with. The boy moves through desolate landscapes and cross borders where passing may rob you of your life.
Politics strongly pervades pic, but philosophical aspects hand in hand with a few visually impaling scenes and a grand acting by the lead performer turns it into a definite winner.

Memory of Love (2009)

Memory of Love (2009)

Director: Chao Wang
Country: China
 Runtime: 92 min













A woman, He Sizhu, and her lover, Chen Mo, are in a car accident. When she wakes up at the hospital where her husband is a surgeon, she has forgotten everything. Her lover has become a stranger, but he wants her back.

Brothers (2011)

Brothers (2011)

Director: Mika Kaurismäki
Country: Finland
Runtime: 1 hour 25 minutes









Two brothers take decidedly different paths when they attempt to seek their fortune. One is a responsible married man who opens up a print shop, working arduously to make a living. The other brother is a hippie who has a young girlfriend. When he stays with his brother, he has an affair with his sister-in-law while his brother sleeps with his girlfriend. The two brother attempt to patch things up after the hippie moves out.

The Turin Horse (2011)

The Turin Horse

 Directors:Béla Tarr, Ágnes Hranitzky
 Country: Hungary
 Runtime:146 min 




1889. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche witnessed the whipping of a horse while traveling in Turin, Italy. He tossed his arms around the horse's neck to protect it then collapsed to the ground. In less than one month, Nietzsche would be diagnosed with a serious mental illness that would make him bed-ridden and speechless for the next eleven years until his death. But whatever did happen to the horse? This film, which is Tarr's last, follows up this question in a fictionalized story of what occurred. The man who whipped the horse is a rural farmer who makes his living taking on carting jobs into the city with his horse-drawn cart. The horse is old and in very poor health, but does its best to obey its master's commands. The farmer and his daughter must come to the understanding that it will be unable to go on sustaining their livelihoods. The dying of the horse is the foundation of this tragic tale. Written by Anonymous